The Ministry of Energy and Mines will carry out new studies to look for gas and oil over the next few months, which will include identifying areas for the exploration of hydrocarbons, which have not previously been explored.
On Wednesday 4 December, the government will close the first cycle of tenders, in which only one company – reached the stage of the presentation of the offer. This company is Apache Dominican Republic Corporation. The US company was awarded block 2 that is the coast off of southeastern San Pedro de Macoris. The contract is for four years, but can be extended to 10, and their offer of an investment of US$5 million was accepted. It now has to be approved by Congress before work can begin.
In the first round of tenders there are still 11 blocks for which no offers were received. When the first round was announced, there were 14 blocks in total on offer: six in the Cibao, four in San Pedro de Macoris, three in Enriquillo and one in Azua.
As reported, the Ministry has now realized that several of these blocks were actually inside protected areas, so they had to be eliminated, as well as those which border protected areas.
Having realized the issue, the new map available to potential investors in exploration, include two blocks in Enriquillo, three in San Pedro, six in the Cibao and one in Azua, although some of the highlighted areas are smaller than originally, to maintain protected areas.
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Diario Libre
3 December 2019